Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 14, 1990                   TAG: 9007140087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TALLAHASSEE, FLA.                                LENGTH: Medium

FOR TEACHERS, 35 CAN BE PASSING GRADE

In a new certification test in Florida, the correct answer is C. And although a score of 60 would earn most students a D on a math exam, the Florida standard is high compared to some other states.

Fifteen states use a different exam, developed by a national testing company, and have established cutoff scores that range from approximately 35 percent of 150 questions to a high of approximately 55 percent.

"It won't do any good to have passing scores . . . that nobody can reach," said Tom Fisher, head of testing for the Florida Department of Education.

Supply and demand of teachers is always a problem as states debate certification requirements, said Catherine Havrilesky, executive director of teacher programs at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J.

And math teachers are in short supply everywhere, according to Iris Carl, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and director of mathematics for Houston public schools.

Carl conceded the scores required of math teachers across the nation seem low and concern her.

But defenders of the testing system point out that the exams include hard questions and aren't designed to result in extremely high scores.

ETS developed the 150-question test used by 15 states. It also offers tests in about 40 other subjects.

Some of the other cutoff scores include from 50 percent to 55 percent for early childhood education, from 40 percent to 45 percent for earth-space science, from 40 percent to 55 percent for chemistry, and from 40 percent to 60 percent for physics.

In math, the low qualifying score was set by Kentucky, 35 percent, and the high by California, 55 percent. Virginia's is 50 percent, the same as Connecticut's. That guideline was the second highest among states using the ETS math test.

Emily Feistritzer, director of the National Center for Education Information, a private research organization in Washington, called it shocking that each state sets its own teacher certification standards.

"The data is so scattered - there really is no national data as far as teachers are concerned," she said.

But Carl noted that the same 1987 study that put the best U.S. students near the bottom in international math ability found that most high school math teachers in the United States were better trained than their Japanese counterparts.